


Sweet Embrace

by marievederci



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Anxiety, Character Death, Feeling of emptiness, Gen, Heartbreaking, Hugs, Other, References to Depression, Sad, Social Anxiety, Suicide, Water, conflicting, dont believe the title, literally nothing goes great in this, yes hugs you heard me right
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-16 03:25:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19309657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marievederci/pseuds/marievederci
Summary: Chan had been having a hard time these days. Especially with his friends all leaving him one by one, leaving him for other richer and "cooler" people. It really wasn't going great for Chan. He had waited for the bad times to pass but they never did, they just kept on coming and getting worse every time.





	Sweet Embrace

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning - description of suicide.
> 
> This fic is not designed to make the reader feel suicidal, this is just pure fiction. I do not wish any harm for Chan or any of the readers of this fic.
> 
> If you feel like you want to end it all, please call a suicide prevention hotline in your country. Your life is precious.
> 
> With that said, please enjoy! And leave kudos thank you

 

 

 

 

It was a beautiful day today - the sun was shining, the birds were chirping and the smell of freshly mowed grass made Chan's head spin. The heat of the summer had arrived two weeks ago and everyone was already dying because of it. Yet the streets were full of loud teenagers, chatting about something uninteresting such as brands of clothing or whether iOS was better than Android or not.

As Chan's left side neighbour had stopped mowing the lawn, the right side neighbour started, seemingly not caring about the heat and the blazing sun. Well, it wasn't like Chan cared much about it either. He was busy thinking about something very important, something that decided his future.

 

 

Ironically, he had skipped work today. He knew he was gonna get fired, considering the fact that his boss really didn't like him and was probably looking for a good reason to fire him, but it didn't matter. If all went according to plan, he'd never have to go to work again. He'd never have to step in to that filthy little office, he'd never have to see all those two-faced snakes staring at him, he'd never have to talk to his boss, who's presence alone made him gag. Never again.

It felt like a dream, it really did.

 

Chan had been having a hard time these days. Especially with his friends all leaving him one by one, leaving him for other richer and "cooler" people. It really wasn't going great for Chan. He had waited for the bad times to pass but they never did, they just kept on coming and getting worse every time.

 

This time, he was about to be forgotten - his friends who he cared about the most made no effort to talk to him unless they needed something. Chan was that supportive friend who everyone wanted to have. He was always the one giving advice and mental support, he would run to his friend's house with tea and cookies if they ever felt sad, he had once driven 4 hours to another city to help a guy out with his relationship. He was the shoulder to cry on, his tissue box never ran out of tissues, his arms were always ready for a comforting hug.

Chan never got the support back though. When he needed a shoulder to cry on, everyone had plans, work, or just left him on seen. They had more important things, or rather, more interesting and entertaining things than to comfort their good friend.

  
No one cared for Chan, it seemed. It was him doing all the caring, giving out his love and reassurance, without expecting to get anything back. Sure, nice friends with common sense would give the love and support back with gratitude. However, it seemed like Chan's friends had different motives and understandings about the world and how it worked.

 

 

  
Chan hadn't been feeling himself lately. He had been feeling disconnected from everything, his so-called friends, family and even the things that he loved doing. Nothing brought him joy anymore.

He hadn't even been going to swimming recently, because of how badly insecure he had become of his body. Water, the environment in which he felt so free, had now become an empty void. The feel of the water didn't make him feel refreshed anymore, it wasn't a sweet embrace, it was suffocating and it dragged him down to the depths. All because of the people around the pool, their judgemental faces as they ate through his body with their deadly stares, making him unable to focus on what he was actually supposed to do. It all made Chan so self-conscious and anxious, that he'd rather give up on one of his biggest passions than to experience that moment again. 

 

It was as if he had been emptied of all emotions at this point, or at least most of them. The Chan who was once caring and sweet was now gone and replaced with some emotionless lump of meat. It was like he was a lemon, which had been squeezed so hard that not even one drop of juice was in it, now being just a tasteless fruit-like thing with no flavour.

All fortune and misfortune tasted the same for Chan. He couldn't even cry over his depressing life situation anymore, every single tear had left him. There really was nothing left in him - no happiness, no sadness, no despair or hope. The only thing he could feel was this big lump of emptiness, and he wasn't sure if it even was a feeling.

 

 

To top everything off, Chan was also struggling financially, often having days where he would just not eat. He'd become skinny and quite scary-looking. His face was sunk in, his hair unkept and dirty. And whenever he ate, he felt no taste or smell, it all felt like he was chewing paper.

 

Nothing in this world seemed pretty and nice. He had lost all motivation for anything.

 

Chan knew what had caused this - all these bad decisions in the past had lead up to this point. Chan would've liked to call it the point where everything starts going up again, but he couldn't, he knew there were worse times coming. He knew that he shouldn't hope for the better, because he will be let down. It hurt, knowing that it really wasn't going to get better anytime soon.

 

 

He was at a dead-end. He had nowhere to go, no one to talk to, nothing to hold on to. Nothing made Chan happy anymore. Even finding money on the streets didn't make him feel lucky. Everything seemed forced, every friendship and every interest.

Chan knew when the doors to new opportunities would show themselves. Looking back, you always find ways how things could've gone differently. But at the present moment, no doors of opportunities were there to see. Truly a dead-end.

 

 

A dead end.

 

 

Chan put on some normal looking clothes, which turned out to be cargo shorts and a stripy polo shirt, before he exited his apartment, leaving his keys and phone on the kitchen table and the door unlocked.

 

They say suicide is a cowardly step to take, just escaping from your problems without dealing with them like an adult. That's actually not true at all - suicide was not for cowards. Chan had tried countless times to hang himself, so many times that he knew exactly how to tie the knot the correct way; he had tried to jump off of a building, but he never managed to do it. It was either that he remembered someone who might need him alive or he just got too scared. Which was strange, considering the fact that he came to put an end to his life.

It was an annoying obstacle between life and death.

 

Today all the obstacles had been cleared and there was nothing stopping him. Chan didn't care if anyone needed him alive anymore. It was their fault for letting him kill himself then! It was their fault for not comforting him when he needed them the most! He was tired of dealing with other people's problems and taking the blame. Today, for the first time in his life, he wanted to be selfish.

To add to that, Chan wasn't scared of the water - he might've been scared of dropping from a great height or breaking his spine with the noose, but water was a safe haven for Chan. As far as there was no one around, that is.

 

 

To some, death is an exit, escape from reality, a hiding place for those who are not in control of themselves or find no point in living anymore. When you're dead, you don't have burdening emotions, problems or any kind of feelings, really. You become detached from your body, which might be a huge relief for those who hate their body, and you roam around the earth, waiting to be reincarnated. Or at least that was what he believed.

 

To Chan, however, death was an entrance.

 

To be reincarnated into another body and try again, that was what he wanted. The "You Only Live Once" thing is a scam, it's only said by those who are scared of regrets. You never lived only once, you had to have multiple reincarnations to fully learn how the world works and what being a human really is and means. That belief reassured Chan and told him that he hadn't fucked up too bad. Maybe only a little bit, maybe not so little bit but quite much actually, but there's no fuck up that can't be fixed.

 

 

He slowly made his way towards the beach, a place that he loved to visit. Well, before he became so insecure of his body. Now he avoided it like wildfire. The thought of taking his clothes off in front of all these people before going for a swim sent shivers down his spine.

The sun had already gone down, leaving only some slight glow on the sky to remind all that the sun had been there and was going to return to the sky after a few hours. Chan wasn't going to see the sun return though.

As expected, the beach was empty at an hour like this. Which was excellent for Chan, since there wouldn't be any people judging his appearance and eating him with their stares. It was just him, the sand and the waves. Exactly like he wanted.

 

He walked towards the ocean and stopped right at the line where the waves were hitting the shore. He let the water soak his old and worn out sneakers. It was a bit chilly, but Chan quite liked the feel of it. It almost felt.. good. It was something that Chan had missed, the freshness and coolness of the water. Maybe he could feel it one last time today and bury himself in the water's sweet hug.

 

He took off his sneakers, neatly placing them on the sand, right on the line where the water doesn't hit the shore anymore. He then started making his way towards the ocean, not even bothering to take his clothes off. The cold water brought goosebumps on Chan's skin.

When the water got so deep he couldn't walk anymore, he started to swim. It was at that moment when he realised how much he loved swimming and how much he had missed the refreshing feeling of it, the soft embrace of water that was carrying him on his back. It made him feel so free, like a dolphin in an endless sea.

 

It was quite hard to swim with clothes on - as they became wet, they got heavier and started dragging him down. Which was actually exactly what Chan wanted - he wanted to bury his face in the chest of the water, who was like a mother to him, and hug it back. He wanted to go so deep that he couldn't get out anymore. And he was on his way there, to say the least.

After some time, he completely disappeared under the water. He tried his longest to hold his breath and not breathe, while diving deeper and deeper. When he had gone deep enough, he exhaled air for the last time in his life. What he inhaled was not air anymore, it was the sweet, yet salty water that filled up his lungs almost immediately. In a way, he liked the feeling of it, even though it felt like he had drank burning gasoline.

 

His survival instincts kicked in and made him try and attempt to swim up to the surface, which turned out to be surprisingly difficult. He had underestimated the depth of the ocean. He could barely see the direction of the light anymore.

The rational side of him, that wanted to stay alive, panicked as he desperately tried to swim upwards to get some oxygen. Yet he himself tried to resist the urge to save himself, because deep inside he really didn't want to. It was a fight between life and death inside of him. Chan had never felt anything like this before, he was fighting himself.

His sense of survival made him gasp for more and more water in hopes of getting at least some kind of oxygen, making him heavier and therefore even harder to swim up to the top. It was conflicting in a way, but Chan quite liked the suffocating feeling of it to his own surprise. The more water entered his body, the dizzier he got.

 

Suddenly, all his panic was gone like it never existed in the first place and he felt this odd calmness overtake his body. It was like he was finally accepting his death, the fact that he couldn't do anything to save himself anymore and he actually never even intended to. Chan liked this calmness, he hadn't felt like this in a long time. There were always some factors that gave him anxiety, wherever he was. It was refreshing to feel so calm and alone for a change.

 

He smiled before he closed his eyes. This was what he had meant by burying himself in the water's embrace. It really was like a soft mother's hug, taking away all the worries in Chan's head, stroking his head and telling him it was gonna be alright.

 

  
" _Go to sleep, honey._ " the ocean told him with a deep and soothing mother-like voice. " _There's nothing that a good sleep can't cure._ "

  
"Goodnight." Chan spoke underwater, no sound actually escaping his mouth.

  
" _Sweet dreams._ " the ocean responded softly before he dozed off.

 

 

 

The first glimpses of light shone on the beach as the sunrise started, bathing everything in it's soft and caressing yellow light. The morning sun greeted every living creature with it's glow, telling everyone to wake up and start their day with a smile.

Slowly, the beach started filling up with people of all ages, from little kids and their mothers to old creepy dudes. Everyone was coming to the beach for a morning swim - what could be better than a refreshing swim in the fresh ocean as the first thing in the morning?

 

Chan's sneakers were still waiting on the shore, waiting for Chan to return without anyone disturbing them. They were worn out and uninviting, so everyone in the beach ignored their existence. Some people questioned why where there a pair of wet sneakers on the shore that seemingly belonged to no one, but since everyone had more important issues to deal with, they didn't think too deeply about it and soon forgot that the sneakers were there.

 

But no matter how long the shoes waited on the shore, Chan never returned.

**Author's Note:**

> I have suicidal tendencies and I have attempted it, but never by drowning, so the description may not be 100% accurate and I apologize for that.
> 
> Thank you for reading! I worked hard on this and I hope you liked reading it as much as I liked writing this. And again, I do not wish any harm for Bang Chan.
> 
> My twitter is @hoseoccult, so follow me if you want! I follow back :)
> 
> Also please leave kudos thanks


End file.
